Featured Author

Darla Isackson

MEET AUTHOR Darla Isackson

Darla Isackson believes that writing is part of her “heavenly assignment” and has been a professional writer for four decades.

In her twenties she found great joy and success serving in the California Mission, where she was asked to write a training manual for lady missionaries. She married soon after her return and graduated from Utah State University. She began writing for Church magazines and co-authored the book To Parents with Love during the years she was raising her five sons.

When full-time work became necessary she served as managing editor for Latter-day Woman Magazine (which she also co-founded), then Covenant Communications, then Aspen Books.

When Darla’s elderly mother came to live with her and her husband Doug, Darla “retired” to care for her mother and focus on writing. From then to the present, more than 300 of her articles have been published (primarily in Meridian Magazine, where she became a regular columnist in 2001). In 2006 she became managing editor and writer for a senior publication, a small job she continues to enjoy (partly because she can do it at home in her pajamas).

Darla’s life was forever changed by the suicide of her second son, Brian, in 2004. Words flowed onto paper to capture her experiences. Her book Trust God No Matter What! was released in 2009, and her book After My Son’s Suicide: An LDS Mother Finds Comfort in Christ and Strength to Go On in 2010. When she received the request to rewrite this book for a general audience, she couldn’t imagine how it could be done without LDS references. But the Lord made it possible and her new book, Finding Hope While Grieving Suicide: Opening Your Heart to the Healing Only God Can Give, was released in 2014. It answers aching questions such as “why didn’t God prevent this”? with solid gospel principles and Bible references, and like her other books, provides comfort by turning the reader to Christ.

Darla lives in West Jordan, Utah, with her husband, Doug, with whom she served a part-time service mission in the Salt Lake Inner City project. Darla is a nature lover who finds respite in beautiful nearby canyons and in a yard that produces many gorgeous roses. She adores her grandchildren (17 and counting), who are a constant source of delight.